June, 2016.

"Can we give it a rest with the pity party?" Jasper comes to join me at the table, placing my ice tea right in front of me and then sliding on the seat in front of me. "You did just fine."

I roll my eyes and hang my head backwards, resting it against the padded backrest of our booth.

My hands meet the cold, sweating glass, curling my fingers around it and feeling how the small beads of water soak my skin as they roll down.

I am too tired and sore all over to even attempt to lift up the glass and take a sip, no matter how parched I actually am. Not to mention that I am so demoralized right now, I could curl into a tiny, pathetic ball, and let myself dry out into oblivion.

Today was the day. After almost a month of meeting with doctors, physical therapists, and the school board, today I finally made my triumphant return to the old life of Lea Matheson.

And it was all around awful.

"And if just fine is what we all aim for, then I am bloody goals." I grumble, lifting my arms above my head, and waving them dramatically before wincing at the pain such movement causes me.

Jasper cackles loudly, forcing me to look at him with daggers shooting from my eyes, and in his direction.

"You know what I mean." He leans forward, propping his elbows on the table, and looking back at me disregarding my foul mood and silent threats. "You went through a lot this past year and you're just coming out of it. Baby steps."

Baby steps. What an appropriate way to describe what I did back there.

Never, in my whole life, have I felt so inadequate and useless. So helpless and small.

It literally felt like I was a toddler who somehow managed to sneak in a room filled with highly trained professionals without anyone noticing it, and kept trying, and failing miserably of course, to imitate their every move.

I knew it was going to be tough, getting back up on the saddle and picking up the rhythm I used to so easily jump into before, but I never expected it to be so humiliating.

Even with Jasper by my side, rooting me whenever I felt like I was losing my strength, and my mind, or actually messing up a few moves of his own to make me seem and feel less stupid, I was constantly at the verge of tears and actually sprint my way out of that room never to be seen again.

And I was on that verge, all right. I made that verge my home for the entire hour and a half that torture lasted. And I would have run away, if only my legs weren't so wobbly and weak.

All eyes were on me, or at least that is how it felt like, and every time I would lock eyes with another classmate that wasn't Jasper, I would have to quickly divert so I couldn't read the mockery in them.

Granted, it was more likely that they didn't even noticed me at all, let alone have a single thought about me or my performance, but still. I just couldn't get out of there fast enough.

"It was tragic." I sentence, unwavering in my opinion. "I was tragic."

He sighs, defeated, going back to rest against the seat and sipping his orange juice, reminding me that my throat feels like sandpaper, and finally gathering the will to drink my beverage.

We sit in silence for a few seconds, which I spend quietly wallowing in my memories of how lame I was today, when the bells above the front door chime, and I notice a familiar silhouette at the corner of my eye.

I know it's impossible but in the half second it takes me to process that fact, my mind flutters away into thinking that it's him.

He came back. From wherever the hell he has been hiding for the past month. He somehow managed to find out where I was - maybe Jasper texted him when I wasn't looking -, and that I'm having an bad day, so he ran to meet me and tell me that everything will be okay. And the second he says that to me, I will believe him wholeheartedly.

But he never comes. And I don't get to hear his soothing voice in my ear as he holds me tight between his arms. And no matter how much I knew it wasn't going to happen, it still breaks my heart into a billion unrecoverable splinters.

"Hello." Somewhere along the way, while I was helplessly fantasizing about Harry in a shiny armor, the guy who triggered those thoughts came close enough to be towering over me now. And as he smiles sheepishly at me, I can't help but to notice those damn dimples.

There was a reason why he seemed so familiar. And it wasn't because I see Harry in every lean, tall, disheveled looking lad that walks into the room that I'm in, or roams amongst an otherwise faceless crowd.

"Hi." I respond, trying to hide both my sudden shyness in the face of him, and the disappointment because he it's not who I want to see.

The last time I saw him was months ago, a year almost, if you can actually believe it's been that long.

I sure can't.

The last time we talked I was coming out of the lockers room with all of my belongings stuffed carelessly in a box, trying really hard to bite down the tears and the frustration that had been eating me from the inside all the way out.

He told me how sorry he was; about me leaving and, while he was at it, about everything that had happened that fateful day with Harry.

He actually used that word: Fateful. And I had to chew my lip to hide the smirk that crept, oh so treacherous, when my thoughts stirred back to the passionate aftermath his encounter with Harry brought upon me. And how it was everything but fateful.

I remember he went in for a quick hug, which I dodge rather rudely, making things extremely uncomfortable for the both of us.

I hurried an apology, swearing that it was all fine and it wasn't anything personal, and he accepted it with a coy smile and a nod.

After that, he just walked away and I never saw him or heard from him again. Until that letter came along.

And now he's just standing there, awkwardly eyeing me and Jasper, not knowing if he should stay and keep talking, or go about his way to find a spot to take a seat.

It's so weird. The fact that this is where we are now. After so many months of me barely giving him a thought every now and then, when I would remember my old days in the city, he is now the unlikely hero of my new beginning.

"Do you want to join us?" I find myself saying before I even have the chance to process the thought.

Judging by his expression, and the way he nods with hesitation, as if he is waiting for me to backtrack on my offer, the feeling is mutual.

But I don't take it back. If anything, I'm kinda thankful that my brain took over the wheel and made the suggestion, because if we're going to have the thank you for potentially having saved my career from the grinder conversation, having it in a public place with Jasper by my side, makes it seem a whole less awkward. For both of us.

For my friend, not so much. But when Andy goes to sit right next to him so he can face me, making him scooch over, he gets trapped between him and the wall, getting fully deprived of the slightest chance he had to slip away. If he ever had one in the first place.

"I've heard you came back today." He says, ever so casually, and I drop my shoulders in silence, nodding. "How was it?"

"It was... interesting." I say, obviously understating the situation so the conversation can swiftly move to where I want to take it. "About that, I was meaning to call you, and thank you for what you did for me."

"Don't mention it." He smiles crookedly, and shrugs, as if what he did was nothing more than a simple favor that took him less than a minute to ask for, which I know it wasn't.

"I feel like I have to, though." I respond. "And to be honest, I'm rather curious as to why you did it. It's not like I've behaved exceptionally well with you."

Something in his eyes seems to flicker, all of a sudden. Like a switch being flipped, and enlightening a truth he was hiding, even to himself.

And now I really wish it would have been Harry walking through that door instead of him.

Not just because there is not one single person in this world I'd like to see more than him; but also because now I know for sure that the little voice inside my head that once told me this wasn't going to be a good idea, and I was forced, no, extorted to ignore it, was absolutely right.

"If you really want to know why..." He leans against the table, and I swiftly do the opposite, almost like a whip. "Let me take you out tonight and I'll tell you."

Yep. The tide has officially changed. And as I glance over at Jasper, silently begging him to say something that would distract him, he simply shrugs and mouths: You're on your own.